I. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the world-wide-web (WWW). In particular, the present invention relates to systems for collecting demographic and marketing information from users on the WWW. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a novel method for presenting marketing questions to a WWW user based on the user""s demographics and/or responses given by the user to previous marketing questions.
II. Description of the Related Art
The Internet has emerged as a global medium, enabling millions of people worldwide to share information, communicate and conduct business. The Internet represents a significant opportunity for businesses to conduct commerce. One way that businesses conduct Internet commerce currently is through banner advertising on the sites of others. Such banner advertising is often not particularly well focused on a particular demographic group. In addition, a business that purchases a banner advertisement is often able to learn very little from a marketing perspective about users that visit the advertiser""s site in response to the advertisement. What is needed is a system that allows an Internet advertiser to interact with internet users more actively during the advertising process, thereby allowing the advertiser to build relationships with such users and collect valuable demographic and marketing information about the users during the advertising process.
The present invention is directed to an on-line method and apparatus for collecting demographic information from a user of a home WWW site and for dynamically selecting questions to present to the user. A plurality of sponsor symbols are displayed for the user on the home WWW site. Each of the sponsor symbol corresponds to an entity that has paid an owner of the home WWW site for the right to be presented to the user on the site. A signal is received at the home WWW site from the user indicating a selection of one of the sponsor symbols by the user. In response to the selected sponsor symbol, a first set of one or more prize symbols are displayed for the user on the home WWW site. Each prize symbol corresponds to a prize that the user can register to win at no cost to the user. A further signal is then received at the home WWW site from the user indicating a selection of a prize symbol from the first set of prize symbols by the user. Next, the system determines whether the user is a registered user of the home WWW site and, if the user is not a registered user of the home WWW site, the system collects demographic information about the user during registration of the user on the home WWW site. In response to the demographic information, at least one sponsor-specific question is selected from a first plurality of sponsor-specific candidate questions, wherein each of the first plurality of sponsor-specific candidate questions is associated with the entity corresponding to the selected sponsor symbol. A selected sponsor-specific question is displayed to the user on the home WWW site. Next, a signal is received from the user indicating an answer of the user to the selected sponsor-specific question, and the answer is stored in a database. Finally, after the user answers the sponsor-specific question, the user is redirected from the home WWW site to a further WWW site associated with the selected sponsor symbol.
In accordance with a further aspect, the steps described above are performed during an initial visit of the user to the home WWW site. Thereafter, during a second visit of the user to the WWW site, the answer given by the user to the previously selected sponsor-specific question may optionally be used, in conjunction with the user""s demographic information, to select a further sponsor-specific question to present to the user. During the next visit of the user to the home WWW site, the plurality of sponsor symbols are redisplayed for the user on the home WWW site, and a signal is received at the home WWW site from the user indicating a selection of one of the redisplayed sponsor symbols by the user. If the redisplayed sponsor symbol selected during the second visit to the home WWW site is the same as the sponsor symbol that was selected by the user during the first visit to the home WWW site, the first set of one or more prize symbols are redisplayed again for the user on the home WWW site. Next, a signal is received at the home WWW site from the user indicating a selection of a prize symbol from the redisplayed first set of prize symbols by the user. One or more further sponsor-specific questions are then selected from the first plurality of candidate sponsor-specific questions based on the demographic information. One or more previous answers to the sponsor-specific questions provided by the user may also be used as a basis for selection of the further sponsor-specific question. Each of the sponsor-specific questions from the first plurality of sponsor-specific questions selected for presentation to the user during the second visit to the home WWW site is different from the sponsor-specific question(s) from the first plurality of sponsor-specific questions selected for presentation to the user during the first visit to the home WWW site. A selected (unanswered) sponsor-specific question is then displayed to the user on the home WWW site, a signal is received from the user indicating an answer of the user to the displayed question, and the answer is stored in the database. Thereafter, the user is redirected from the home WWW site to the further WWW site associated with the selected sponsor symbol.
The process described in the paragraph above is then repeated during subsequent visits of the user to the home WWW site in which the user selects the same sponsor symbol, until all of the questions in the first plurality of sponsor-specific questions have been presented to the user. In one embodiment, if there are no sponsor-specific questions for the selected sponsor, or if the user visits the home WWW site and selects the same sponsor symbol enough times such that all of the questions in the first plurality of sponsor-specific questions have been presented to the user, then the system selects and presents site-specific questions to the user. In contrast to the sponsor-specific questions that solicit information that is tailored for a particular sponsor, the site-specific questions solicit more general marketing information from a user. In a preferred embodiment, the site-specific questions are selected during each visit of the user to the home WWW site based on the user""s demographic information. One or more previous answers submitted by the user may also be used as a basis for selection of the site-specific questions. The responses to these site-specific questions are also stored in the database. Regardless of whether the user is presented a sponsor-specific question or a site-specific question during the visit to the home WWW site, the user is redirected to the further WWW site associated with the selected sponsor symbol after the user answers the question.